A star Silicon Valley entrepreneur explains how bitcoin is going to change the world

Tech entrepreneur and bitcoin guru Wences Casares saw his
family lose their entire wealth three times in
Argentina because of hyperinflation, a currency
collapse and confiscation.

"[There's] more people in the world who need a currency
they can trust than the
opposite," Casares told Dan
Morehead, the ex-head of macro trading at Tiger
Management, in a new interview on RealVision
Television, a
subscription financial news service.

Those instances are what ultimately led him to the digital
cryptocurrency bitcoin.

Casares created Argentina's first internet provider and later
sold his online brokerage firm to Banco Santander for $750
million in 2000. He is now a star of the Silicon Valley
bitcoin scene, headingXapo, a
company that provides a bitcoin wallet and storage
vault.

The real "a-ha" moment for bitcoin happened when he was
planning a trip with a group of childhood friends back in
Argentina.

'I was very skeptical'

"We all had to chip in some money. They were all in
Argentina except me, I'm here in California. They all got
together and gave the cash to one of them. And I was trying to
find a way to send money. At the time, PayPal had to stop sending
money to Argentina and wire transfers were not working because of
the currency control."

That's when one of his friends suggested using
bitcoin.

"I was very skeptical because this particular friend
of mine is not particularly tech savvy or financially
sophisticated."

Mauricio
Macri was elected president of Argentina in
NovemberREUTERS/Ivan
Alvarado

Casares did some research online and arranged a meeting in a Palo
Alto cafe with someone he connected with on Craigslist. He gave
the man cash and got some bitcoin in return. He immediately sent
the bitcoin to his friend in Argentina.

"By the time I made it back to the office my friend had
sold it for pesos in Argentina. I was like, 'Wow that's
incredible. It's like magic.'"

Casares compared the power of bitcoin in the developing
world to the cellphone.

"I think it's obvious the cellphone had a lot more impact
in developing world than the developed world because most phones
in the developing world are cellphones. If it weren't for
cellphones the developing world would not be communicating so it
really changed the lives of people in emerging markets."

That's not to say that cellphones aren't important in the
developed world though. Bitcoin will be important there too,
Casares said.

"It's easier to see how [bitcoin can
be] transformative and it can change the lives of people in
emerging markets, but it also has an important role to play in
the developed world."